Using Young Adult Literature with Adolescent Learners of English

by Elizabeth L. Watts

I am telling you this just the way it went with all the
details I remember as they were, and including the parts I'm not
sure about. You know, where something happened but you aren't
convinced you understood it? Other people may tell it different but
I was there.
(from Make Lemonade, by Virginia E. Wolff, 1993)

This past summer I spent two weeks in a middle school language
arts classroom for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).
A middle school class of English learners, students learning
English as a second language, and I explored the young adult novel,
Make Lemonade
(
Wolff, 1993
).
Make
Lemonade
features LaVaughn, a fourteen-year-old girl from a
single parent home, and her experiences while babysitting two small
children in a low-income neighborhood. Jolly, the children's
mother, is an orphaned seventeen-year-old who works in a factory to
support her children. I believed the thematic issues of
self-discovery and family and peer relationships portrayed in
Make Lemonade
might be of particular interest to adolescent
English learners; they are attempting to answer the questions of
adolescence, "Who am I? Who am I in relation to others?" in a
country and culture that may be different from their own.

The thirty-five English learners at a South Florida middle
school and I spent two hours per day for two weeks reading and
studying
Make Lemonade.
The class was made up of Hispanic
speakers of Spanish, Haitian speakers of Creole, and Brazilian
speakers of Portugese. Sixth-eighth graders were grouped together,
and they demonstrated mixed levels of English proficiency. Three
sixth grade students, new to the United States, had little to no
knowledge of English; two spoke Spanish; one spoke Creole. The
students' regular ESOL teacher was a Haitian male who taught middle
school ESOL full-time because he could not obtain a position
teaching ESOL to adults.

In the paragraphs that follow, I discuss (1) my rationale for
using young adult literature with adolescent English learners; (2)
my approach to teaching
Make Lemonade;
(3) activities in
which students engaged and samples of their work; and (4)
implications for teachers who explore young adult literature with
adolescent English learners.

Why Present English Learners with Young Adult
Literature?

Cultural and background knowledge play an important role in the
English learner's understanding of reading selections (
Vacca and Vacca, 1999
;
Peregoy and
Boyle, 1997
). Emerging as a serious problem for English
learners is the fact that in language arts, they may deal with
literary texts that do not reinforce their cultural norms and that
portray experiences about which they are unfamiliar (
Peregoy and Boyle, 1997
). This mismatch of English
learners' background knowledge and that implied in the literature
they read may hamper their ability to make meaning of a text. Such
knowledge may relate to idiomatic expressions used in a culture or
different cultural emphasis upon individual and community
welfare.

Part of English learners' experience with an unfamiliar text
involves bridging "social distance" -- the distance between the
world view of their home culture and the culture of the language
they are learning. This world view involves how thought and emotion
are defined by a given culture. For example, in Western society,
thought may be relatively linear, with a story or persuasive
argument in this culture relayed in a chronological and concise
fashion. In a non-Western society, thought may be circular, with an
issue examined from all sides. In literary works of English then,
English learners must bridge the social distance, or gap in
perception of thought and emotion between their home culture and
that of the language they are learning. Faced with a new culture
and language, adolescent learners of English may benefit from YA
literature, because it often reflects their age and concerns.

Langer (1997)
states that literature is an
inviting context for students learning a second language and
literacy "because it taps into what they know and who they are"
(607). According to
Krashen (1985)
, using
one extended text, such as a novel, or several similar texts -- on
the same subject, of the same genre, or by the same author -- gives
English learners comprehensible input, language they understand,
that builds schema and background knowledge. YA literature is
particularly appropriate for use with adolescent English language
learners for at least three reasons: (1) it has the potential to
attract and hold the interest of adolescent English learners as
they are developing their identities in relation to self and
community (
Watts, 1997
); (2) it often provides
readers with stories about characters from a variety of ethnic and
cultural groups (
Donelson and Nilsen, 1997
;
Ericson, 1995
); (3) it allows teachers to
use "content-based instruction," which refers to concurrent
teaching of academic subject matter and second language skills (
Brinton, Snow, and Wesche, 1989
). When
adolescents are reading and studying YA books, meaning-making can
be the focus of instruction. Abundant opportunities to engage in
meaningful use of the language in a relatively anxiety-free
environment emerge in a natural way as adolescent English learners
explore and reflect upon the characters, situations, settings, and
actions they find in young adult literature.

Make Lemonade

I selected
Make Lemonade
to explore with the middle
school English learners because of its adolescent characters, point
of view, and language. Another important feature is its
easy-to-read yet poetic format.
Make Lemonade
lends itself
to in-class reading because it is written in short chapters that
can be read aloud and discussed with students in a short time
period. It is written in the everyday, conversational English of
adolescents that adolescent English learners may be starting to
hear and understand, as opposed to more complex language found in
traditional literary texts.

This young adult novel is about LaVaughn, a fourteen-year-old
girl, who lives with her widowed mother in a low-income
neighborhood. LaVaughn's mother tries to instill the importance of
self-respect and education in her daughter. LaVaughn wants to go to
college. Her mother has some money set aside, but LaVaughn must
also save some money for college on her own. She accepts a job
babysitting for Jolly, a seventeen-year-old single mother of two.
Jolly lives in the projects and works at a factory to support her
two children, Jeremy and Jilly.

LaVaughn narrates the novel. Thus, readers may explore her
evolving identity and her inner questions and conflicts regarding
the frustrations of babysitting and keeping up with her own school
work, dealing with her mother, and attempting to help Jolly gain
self-respect. LaVaughn's narration provides an adolescent
perspective of plot events, one to which adolescent English
learners may relate since they, like LaVaughn, are experiencing
passage into adulthood.

Teaching and Learning
Make Lemonade

In teaching
Make Lemonade,
I integrated reading, writing,
speaking, and listening activities because I wanted students to use
English as a whole system of communication (
Freeman and Freeman, 1998
). I used content-based
instruction (
Brinton, Snow, and Wesche,
1989
), a young adult novel in the target language, English, and
the teaching of English language skills.
Custodio and Sutton (1998)
state that content-based instruction
serves as a link to mainstream classes:

Multilevel groups work together on a common topic, and the
differences of culture and linguistic ability are decreased.
Students can practice mainstream class discourse types in a
non-threatening atmosphere by presenting oral reports and engaging
in oral discussions, academic reading and writing, and outlining.
(20)

The middle school English learners listened and followed along
as I read the novel aloud; they also engaged in language study
through reviewing unfamiliar vocabulary, small-group and all-class
discussion, collaborative writing, and image-making based on their
reading. Below are details related to the teaching and learning of
the novel.

Book talks
. On the Friday before I began the book, I
completed a sixty-second book talk (
Donelson
and Nilsen, 1997
) on the novel. I passed out copies of the
novel so that students could look at the cover. I gave a brief plot
summary and then read a short excerpt from the text. Afterwards, I
asked students to predict what might happen in the novel. The book
talk gave students a preview of the book; their responses indicated
their interest in exploring
Make Lemonade
with me. They
showed particular interest in learning about LaVaughn and Jolly's
lives.

Vocabulary
. Prior to teaching
Make Lemonade,
I
leafed through it and circled every word I thought students would
not know. My list of vocabulary words was too extensive to cover in
two weeks. Instead, I chose up to five vocabulary words for each
chapter that I believed that the class would be unable to define by
using context clues. Before each day's reading, I presented the
vocabulary words and definitions on an overhead transparency for
students to copy. Then, we reviewed the spelling, pronunciation,
and definition of each word aloud. Students repeated each
vocabulary word after me in unison; they checked the spelling of
the words on their own papers as I spelled each word aloud. We
composed one to two sample sentences for each word, which I
displayed on an overhead transparency, and discussed how each
sentence illustrated the word's meaning. Students kept their
vocabulary out to refer to it during reading.

I am not sure this was the best way to approach vocabulary with
English learners. The traditional English teacher in me felt the
need to provide more extensive vocabulary activities, such as
vocabulary in context worksheets and quizzes. However, my new
identity as a whole language teacher led me to believe that the
students' immersion in language through reading young adult
literature was more important than rote learning of vocabulary.
During in-class reading, students had the opportunity to show
comprehension of vocabulary in two ways: (1) by engaging in
whole-class interpretation of passages with complex language; and
(2) by answering literal comprehension questions on the text.

Reading aloud to students
. I chose to read
Make
Lemonade
aloud to students since they might be hesitant to read
aloud in front of their peers. In this language arts ESOL class,
the regular teacher engaged students in silent reading activities
before and after I taught each day; however, they did not have any
opportunity to practice reading aloud. Therefore, I believed these
English learners would be hesitant to do so with me, a newcomer. By
listening to the novel read aloud, students could experience the
flow of oral language (
Custodio and Sutton,
1998
) and possibly have more time to focus upon comprehension
of an English text.

Whole-class discussion of text
. Students' perceptions of
reading indicated that they were looking for one right answer, one
correct interpretation. They expected me to tell them what to
think, especially when I asked them response-based questions, such
as prediction questions ("What do you think will happen next?") or
character motivation questions ("Why do you think LaVaughn
continues to babysit, even though Jolly cannot pay her?").

Students were hesitant about expressing their opinions during
the first few days of studying the novel. I continued to assure
them there was no one right answer to response-based questions;
however, their answers had to be supported with evidence from the
text to answer the question, "What in the text makes you think this
way?" I modeled ways to express an opinion, and discussed with them
how I arrived at my opinions, drawing on evidence in the text, and
thus maintaining Rosenblatt's criteria of validity (
1978
). Three days into teaching the novel, more
students began sharing their thoughts and the reasons behind their
opinions.

As a class, the students responded well to review questions that
I posed at the beginning of each class, or after the day's reading.
I stopped while we were reading and asked questions to check
students' comprehension. At the end of each class, we focused on
comprehension, either by creating an oral plot summary together,
which I transcribed and displayed on overhead transparency, or by
writing their answers to five literal and response-based questions
I placed on the board. We reviewed summaries or answers to review
questions at the beginning of the following day's class. After each
day's reading, the three students with little to no knowledge of
English discussed the text in English and/or their native language
with an assigned native language partner, under the guidance of the
regular ESOL teacher. They also worked with their native language
partners throughout class activities on the novel. Due to time
constraints and class size, this was the only way these new English
learners could receive individualized instruction.

Focus on characters
. After reading half of the novel, we
stopped and made lists of adjectives that described Jolly,
LaVaughn, and LaVaughn's mother. I asked students, "Give me a word
that tells me what you think of (Jolly, LaVaughn, LaVaughn's
mother)." Students had to justify their adjectives by answering the
question: "Why do you think of her this way?" They had to cite
specific behaviors of a character for their justifications to be
valid; in doing so, they revealed their interpretations of
character behavior and their evolving interpretations of the novel
itself.

Imagemaking
. After reading the first sixteen chapters of
the novel, we discussed the reaction of LaVaughn's mother to
Jolly's situation; LaVaughn's attitude about Jolly's situation;
Jolly's neighborhood and home; and LaVaughn's determination to
continue babysitting Jolly's children despite her mother's
feelings.

In chapter fifteen, LaVaughn describes how Jolly comes home
after a fight in the street: "Jolly came home bleeding and she
doesn't have folks. 'Nobody doesn't have folks,' I said. I'm
Nobody, then,' she said, ' 'cause I don't.' Her whole face was
scraped like it had a grater taken to it, like it was cheese" (
Wolff, 33
). As much as she hates to, LaVaughn
calls her mother for help. Her mother goes to Jolly's apartment for
the first time and attends to Jolly's scraped face with a first-aid
kit. Later on at home, LaVaughn's mother comments on Jolly's
situation, saying Jolly has to lie in the bed she has made for
herself.

Much of the novel takes place in Jolly's apartment. I wanted the
students to provide their own interpretations of Jolly's apartment,
to show me how it appeared to them. I also wished for them to step
into the shoes of another character, such as LaVaughn's mother,
seeing the apartment for the first time and opposing LaVaughn
working there. As an individual assignment, students drew a picture
of Jolly's apartment and then wrote a letter describing the
apartment and their feelings about LaVaughn working there. They
wrote their letters as LaVaughn's mother, or one of LaVaughn's
friends.

During this activity, students participated in what
King (1993)
calls "imagemaking." They created a
picture, using finger paints and markers, to show their
interpretation of Jolly's apartment. Next, they used writing to
explain their visual interpretations from a character's viewpoint.
To model imagemaking, I shared my own picture of Jolly's apartment
and a corresponding letter from her mother with students first to
show them that artistic talent was not necessary. I sought to
create a safe environment for English learners to risk
communicating their interpretations in English.

Maria, an Hispanic eighth grader of near native oral English
proficiency, wrote as LaVaughn's friend Annie. Her work appears as
she wrote it:

Dear LaVaughn:

I went to Jolly's house, and I saw the conditions that she lives
in. I think that you can't go any more because the place is so
dirty. you can't find anything. Oh my God, I can't be there. You
can get sick with everything dirty the bathroom is dirty, dirty,
smell so bad, bad. insects in all the house. The garbage in the
living room in the kitchen, the kitchen when is the food.
Mosquitos, hand prints in the windows

Sincerely, Annie

Caline, an Hispanic seventh grader of intermediate oral English
proficiency, wrote as Annie too. Her work appears as she wrote it:

I don't think you should continue working for Jolly
When I went their the other day there were cracks on the walls
there was roaches crawling every were When I looked in the corner
their was this big gicgantic roach their may be it was the father
of all the little roaches I am telling you have to stop working for
her

Sincerely, annie

Once students completed their pictures and letters, their ESOL
teacher placed them into small groups of mixed English proficiency
and cultural background to share their drawings and letters.
Previously, the classroom had been marked by racial tension; the
ESOL teacher wanted students in small groups to communicate across
cultural lines.
Freeman and Freeman (1998)
state that such multicultural group interaction makes students
"aware of the importance of developing forms of oral and written
language that will allow them to communicate with other social
groups besides their own" (153). When sharing in small groups, the
native language partners of new English learners translated the
learner's letter into English for the group; later in the school
day, the three new English learners collaborated with their native
language partners to translate their original letters into English.

Students eagerly shared what they thought about Jolly's
surroundings in small group and whole class discussion. As a class,
we discussed what we learned from the activity and small group
sharing. Several students said that they saw how other people
thought Jolly's apartment was just as dirty as they did. Some
students pointed out how the pictures helped them visualize Jolly's
surroundings more clearly. Next, we talked about Jolly's
surroundings in the context of her life as an adolescent mother. A
few students stated that Jolly's experience as a single,
impoverished parent could possibly happen to adolescents,
regardless of ethnic background, if they did not have parental
support like LaVaughn and if they made the wrong life choices like
Jolly. Our discussion of visual and verbal interpretations about
Jolly's life and surroundings may have helped this class of
culturally diverse English learners find common ground as young
adults.

Collaborative writing
. After we finished the novel, the
ESOL teacher placed students in small groups of mixed English
proficiency. Each group was to write a diary entry that one of the
characters [Jolly, LaVaughn, LaVaughn's mother] might have written,
and that the entry be written as if the time is one year after the
book ends. The students were able to use the diary format to
express their understanding of the impact of events and attitudes
on one of the bookÕs characters. By writing the diary entry
collaboratively, students were in a position to probe their initial
ideas about the chosen character, question their own and
othersÕ assumptions about the character, and justify them
orally. Students completed their diary entries with markers on
large drawing paper.

Each of the small groups included a mix of girls and boys who
spoke Creole or Spanish; some groups also included students who
spoke Portuguese. Although pairs of students who spoke the same
native language used that language to discuss their thoughts
initially, the groups were inclined to use English to communicate
what they wanted to write A group of Hispanic and Haitian students
wrote as if they were Jolly:

Dear Diary,

Today I graduated, and LaVaughn is proud of me. I got enough
money to keep my life going. LaVaughn comes to visit me sometimes.
She sees that I have enough responsabilaty to keep my house clean,
and to take care of my kids. LaVaughn is not the only one.

Another group of Hispanic and Haitian students wrote as LaVaughn:

Dear Diary,

Today I went to Jolly's apartment to visit Jilly and Jeremy.
Actually I went to visit Jilly because I wanted to see how she was
doing. Something surprised me. I saw Jolly's apartment really
clean. I saw no roaches except for the one I saw in the corner. I
saw Jilly still playing with that spider that got stuck in her
throat. It was goowi and wet. Jeremy was still the same. He still
sticks his hands in the peanut butter jar. I was glad to visit
Jolly Wait until I tell my mother about how clean her house
was.

Sincerely, LaVaughn

One small group of six Spanish girls astounded me by discussing
their interpretations of the novel and the content of the diary
entry in Spanish. Then they switched to English when writing the
actual diary entry. They wrote as LaVaughn:

Dear Diary,

Yesterday, I graduated from High school, and I decided to go to
college. I got certificate, and my mom told me that I have to keep
my grades high. Everybody had to choose one way to study, and I
chose to be a doctor.

I'm proud of Jolly because at first when I knew her she didn't
respect herself. Now she keeps the house clean, and she respect her
life. Also she takes good care of her kids.

Sincerely, LaVaughn

Collaborative writing of a character diary entry for
Make
Lemonade
enabled English learners to communicate their
interpretations of characters, plot events, and the novel as a
whole.

What I Learned: Implications for Teachers of English/Language
Arts

1. Promote reader responses by sharing your own
reading.

I encouraged students to share their own ideas about the text by
modeling how I developed my interpretations. I tried to demonstrate
how my meaning-making evolved, by going back to the text to reveal
my "path to interpretation." When something in the novel puzzled
me, I would ask the students for help and model returning to the
text to try to understand a situation that troubled me or character
behavior that confused me.

2. Allow for collaborative writing.

Krashen (1982)
claims that social
interactions help language learners handle conversations better and
refine their ideas while providing comprehensible input needed for
language development. I noticed that when students wrote
collaboratively, their writing was "cleaner"; it had more clarity
than when they wrote individually. Students also had an opportunity
to test and defend interpretations in a small, peer group, where
they might have been more likely to take risks. For example, when
writing the diary entry, the group of Hispanic girls discussed what
they wanted to say in Spanish. In English, they focused on how they
would phrase a sentence, paying attention to correct verb tense and
English word order.

3. Use students' experiences to connect them with the
literature.

I modeled the ways that I connected my personal life experiences
to the literary text. For example, I discussed my relationship with
my mother, which is similar to the one LaVaughn has with hers. I
went back to the text and cited particular similarities in our
relationships, such as the stern mother figure and mother-daughter
conversations, and explained why those passages reminded me of my
own life. Students then began to reflect on their personal
relationships with their parents, guardians, or adult relatives and
they brought those reflections to bear on their reading of the
text. . When considering JollyÕs and LaVaughn's friendship,
students were able to connect with the text by answering the
question, "Do you know anyone like Jolly or LaVaughn?"

4. Go BEYOND the literal.

Over time, my students learned that meaning did not reside in
the text, but that it lived in their transaction with the text and
the personal experiences called up by it (
Rosenblatt, 1978
). These adolescent English
learners enjoyed interpreting character behavior in a particular
plot situation and in the context of the young adult novel as a
whole. They learned to return to the text to support their
interpretations; I know this because I saw them do it to justify
their claims about the text when writing the diary entries after we
finished the book.

Carrell and Eisterhold (1987)
state that
in teaching literature to English learners, teachers should not
respond to what readers do right or wrong but to what readers are
trying to do. Since English learners are attempting to make sense
of an English text, "a teacher who listens carefully and responds
to a student's efforts will become aware of both the background
knowledge and the cultural problems that students themselves bring
to the text" (554). They contend that teachers gain this kind of
awareness through asking students open-ended questions about a
selection, probing for inferences from the text, and asking
students to justify their opinions. Summaries or connecting
responses also help teachers achieve awareness of student
background knowledge and cultural problems relative to text
comprehension.

5. Allow new English learners or limited English proficient
students to write in their native language.

Working with thirty-five adolescent English learners with varied
levels of English proficiency may seem like a daunting task. The
regular ESOL teacher and I decided to allow new English learners to
work with a native speaker of their language, who had intermediate
to near-native proficiency in English. New English learners wrote
in their native languages; then, they translated their writing into
English with the help of their partners.

Cummins (1996)
suggests that students
acquire concepts most readily in their first, or native, language
and then understand them in their second language. He argues that
the concepts a bilingual person builds form a Common Underlying
Proficiency (CUP), which is available for articulation in any
language the person speaks or writes. For example, once students
know how to write in one language, they can transfer their
knowledge about the writing process to another language.

6. Give students an opportunity to identify with
characters.

Use of the young adult novel with adolescent English learners
provided readers with characters to whom they could relate. The
adolescent English learners held on to key elements of the plot by
focusing on LaVaughn and Jolly, the protagonists in
Make
Lemonade,
and their interactions with other characters.
Students remembered that LaVaughn's primary motivation for
babysitting was to earn money for college. They also remembered the
novel's theme of self-respect as it was apparent in (1) the strong
outlook on life of LaVaughn's mother; (2) LaVaughn's teaching
Jeremy and Jilly to be clean; (3) LaVaughn's attendance at a
self-esteem class; (4) LaVaughn's encouragement of Jolly to stand
up for herself; and (5) Jolly's development of self-respect in
attending school and saving Jilly from choking.

7. Use teacher reflection to focus lessons.

Schon (1983)
suggests that professional
teachers engage in reflection in action by continuously analyzing
experiences to improve practice. While teaching, I sometimes
noticed that I needed to revise an approach or a question. I would
reflect on student reactions and survey my repertoire of approaches
to implement another method that addressed student misunderstanding
or my inability to express a thought clearly for student
comprehension
(Raines and Shadiow, 1995)
.

I also wrote a reflection on each lesson as soon as possible
after teaching. I used my written reflections to gain further
knowledge about the classroom, my methods, student reactions, and
my reactions (
Sparks-Langer and Colton,
1991
). This practice allowed me to collect my thoughts about
the following: (1) my failure to get through to students at times;
(2) methods for dealing with students who had little to no English
proficiency; (3) my own insecurities in an ESOL environment; (4)
evidence of lesson and strategy effectiveness; (5) getting students
to become more responsive, more willing to risk being wrong or
falling short of correct answers or valid text interpretations; (6)
classroom management; (7) student reactions to activities,
questions, working in groups, me as a guest teacher; (8)
activities, questions, and methodological approaches to future
lessons.

8. Use imagemaking to promote discussion.

Imagemaking (
King, 1993
) gave my adolescent
English learners the opportunity to reveal their interpretations of
Jolly and her situation. Then, they used writing to explain their
interpretations in English. They could get their thoughts down on
paper using artistic materials without the pressure of
communicating their initial interpretations in English, having to
deal with not knowing vocabulary and possible embarrassment for
incorrectness. With their visual creation, they could take the time
to view their interpretations and through writing ponder their
meaning, with time to think of how to express these interpretations
with English words. When writing the letter to LaVaughn, they could
name their interpretations as those of a character, exploring point
of view. Then, we used their visuals and letters to LaVaughn to
discuss interpretations of Jolly's situation, LaVaughn's conviction
to babysit for Jolly despite others' opinions, and predictions
about subsequent plot events.

I am a former teacher of high school English, and a long-time
proponent of YA literature in the classroom. In the past few years,
I earned the state of Florida's ESOL Endorsement, the state-
mandated teacher education in linguistic and cultural issues
related to teaching non-native English speakers. My journey to
accepting my role as a teacher of literacy, not necessarily native
English speakers, has been one fraught with disappointments,
frustrations, and helplessness. In the teaching and learning
situation described above, I had to deal with myself as a classroom
teacher again, this time with the necessary education to address
the needs of the English learners I taught. Before, I had English
learners in my mainstream English classes and no education in
teaching English to non-native speakers. This experience has helped
me begin to know myself as a new literacy educator. I am determined
to continue to learn how best to apply my new knowledge and ability
in an English learner classroom, and to rely on YA literature to
help me meet the challenges I will find there.

Elizabeth L. Watts is an Assistant Professor of English
Education at the University of South Florida, Tampa,
Florida.

Copyright 1999. The Assembly on Literature for
Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English (ISSN
#0882-2840). Permission is given to copy any article provided
credit is given and the copies are not intended for resale in any
form.